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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 120,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 5 days for that many people to see it.

I love autumn at the Jersey Shore. Yes, autumn! I’ve been neglecting the blog and am a little bit behind. Is it acceptable to still blame the holidays, even though it’s February? This was a beautiful November day at the beach. Compared to our most recent weather it seems darn near tropical.

When my friend recently had a baby I decided that I wanted to paint my childhood rocking chair to give to her baby daughter for Christmas. This was my first attempt at using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (ASCP) on something other than a picture frame.

Original Rocking Chair

I started by painting the entire chair in ASCP Versailles, one of my favorite colors. Julia’s nursery bedding has a paisley design and I knew I was not a good enough painter to free hand that, so I used a Martha Stewart paisley stencil. The accents were added using ASCP in Emile and Old White.

Paisley Detail on Seat

Paisley Detail on Back

After the painting was completed it was time for the waxing, sanding and distressing. I have to admit I still struggle with the waxing. I never get the piece to the level of smoothness that I would like. I am hoping this will come with practice. For this piece I used the ASCP clear wax and added minimal distressing. After forty years this chair has a new life in the nursery of another little girl.

Julia’s Rocker

Note: I apologize for the less than amazing photos of this project. I was running out of time and the time to take photos of the project is what suffered. No matter how much planning you do the holidays always manage to sneak up faster than expected.

A few weeks ago I took a trip ‘down the shore’ and came across the newly minted Guinness Book of World Records World’s Tallest Sandcastle at Point Pleasant Beach, NJ. At 38 feet, 2 inches, it’s just slightly taller than the sandcastle’s I used to make on this very beach. OK, OK – it’s about 37 feet taller than my best sandcastle effort.

I’ve got a bunch of cardboard shipping boxes in the garage and was trying to think of ways decorate them so I could use them for storage in my house. I settled on covering one of them in burlap, because, well…I’ve got a thing for burlap. I just love bulap’s texture and casual look.

I taped up the seams of the box and then it was ready for the burlap. Using Mod Podge, I glued down ¼ of an inch of burlap onto 1 side of the box to begin with. For this first side, I actually put the glue on top of the burlap to ensure it was secured to the box.

Once it dried I continued going around the sides of the box, first brushing on the glue and then pressing the burlap onto the wet glue. After each side set up, I’d move onto the next side repeating the same steps.

The fourth and final side of the box was finished off by folding under the burlap to create a clean seam. Again, to ensure it was secured, glue was put on top of the burlap. It dries clear so it doesn’t dramatically change the look of the burlap.

After the entire box was dry, I trimmed up the burlap that hung over the edges of the box and I was good to go.